The present invention relates to transfer trays for surgical sharps, especially those having a concavity for securing said sharps.
In surgical procedures, surgical sharps are passed between operating room personnel. The most important of these transfers is the one delivering the sharps piece to the operating surgeon. The surgeon's intense attention is focused on the portion of the patient's body to be addressed by the surgeon. Passage of surgical sharps to a necessarily distracted surgeon has in the past resulted in puncture or cutting wounds to the surgeon as he or she reaches for a surgical sharp piece.
In an attempt to reduce the likelihood of surgeon injury during passage of surgical sharps, one prior art device comprises an open topped kidney shaped dish fitted with slightly elevated ribs at the dish bottom. The surgical sharp piece is simply placed in the dish concavity so that the piece is supported by parallel ribs. A slight tilt of the dish to one side of the other by the transferring personnel results in the surgical sharps piece being dumped on the floor or in the surgical field. In addition, a user reaching into the dish is not provided with any protection from injury. While this device is somewhat superior to simply handing the piece to a surgeon, it is only a slight improvement.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,065,596 discloses two passing trays for two different types of surgical sharps. A first device has a rectangular opening with sloping side walls to a bottom longitudinal slot, which slot is expanded at a mid-section area so that a user's hand is somewhat directed to a mid-section of a scalpel handle of a scalpel located in the slot. There are important deficiencies with the '596 patent's first device for passing a scalpel. The scalpel handle rests on its side so that the user must (1) use slippery, glove-tipped fingertips to lift an edge of the scalpel handle and (2) re-orient the handle to cause the blade to face downward in order to actually use the scalpel. Second, a user must substantially re-direct their focus from a surgical site to the details of the first device tray in order to direct their fingers to the expanded part of the tray's long slot that will allow the user to pick up the scalpel. The user is protected from the scalpel blade because the scalpel lies flat on its side, i.e., the scalpel blade edge is directed to one of the side walls of the tray slot. However, the price paid for safety is inconvenience. A second device supports a suturing needle holder and suturing needle. There is no relationship between the first and second devices except that they are rectangular. The suturing needle holder in the second device is primarily supported on its two long shafts on an inclined plane so that the weight of the device causes it to slide slightly forward in a slot prepared for a semi-circular or curved needle. The slot of the second device still allows for puncture wounds to occur where the needle rises above the upper edges of the slot for the needle.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,013,656 and 4,969,554 also show that the prior art has contemplated the use of a concavity in disposable transfer trays for surgical sharps. However, a user must carefully direct their attention and visual focus to the tray concavity to be certain of the required location of thumb and fingers to grasp said sharps.
It is critical that a device used to transfer surgical sharps such as scalpels and suturing needle holders (with suturing needles) be presented in a transfer tray requiring only minimum attention by the user surgeon and providing a high level of protection against puncture and cutting injury to the surgeon's hand. The present invention provides those functions in this single device capable of bearing multiple types of surgical sharps.